If you have ever thought that universities are for the most part a business, teaching young adults to conform to certain dogmas, or else. This may be your proof.
The scenes we saw of student Elijah Burke cascading through the social media algorithms of free speech advocates this week, attending a Q&A organised by the Literary and Debating Society at the University of Galway with presidential candidate Catherine Connolly, might add to your conviction.
He is a law student, studying law, asking a question regarding law, to a barrister, who happens to be running for President. Points to note regarding the event: they were pre-approved questions. If this is not the correct forum, may I ask, where is? He was polite, concise, but most of all, on point.
Is there not a rich irony that the sole purpose of law students is to engage in respectful, rational debate? Who better to put such a question to than a presidential hopeful?
If you want to be critical of him (which many people do), the only potential flaw in his argument, not that he was afforded much of an opportunity to make it, was that he cited his brother when broaching the question, making it personal.
However, looking at this objectively, had he had just asked the legitimate question that a large portion of the Irish population would like a potential president to be able to answer, I doubt he would have received a different response.
A crowd analysis is necessary: presumably consisting of mainly fellow law students. Let us be frank, it is probably not the first time they have heard such utterances, and likely have acquired a somewhat mild resistance to his authenticity and defiant values, especially at a time where many young people are so lacking in purpose.
Does that make their reaction more acceptable? No. More palatable? Maybe. The status quo? Yes.
If you were to be extremely generous you could say what we witnessed was apathy, or a general malaise. That said, most reasonable people know that apathy was not what was seen in that lecture hall, it was something else. Something far more primitive, something that occurs when all voices are not heard in the debate. Pack mentality, groupthink and cancel culture prevailed, and that is not good for education, unity or democracy. People so ‘progressive’ they apparently have evolved right by free speech and unwilling to hear an alternative view, or worse still, a conservative one.
It is impossible not to view the way Elijah was treated as anything other than prejudicial. Tarred by his name, or a religious brush, that’s an article for another day.
Just this week we saw Catherine Connolly defend her choice in recruiting a convicted criminal as part of her team. That is her prerogative and you will hear no judgement from me on this. That said, it is hard to see past the hypocrisy. I appear to have missed a step here: is the ‘proclaimed’ premise of socialism, not in fact, equality? One could be forgiven for drawing parallels from Orwell’s Animal Farm, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than…”
Without rehashing the details of Elijah’s brother, Enoch Burke’s case, you’ll often hear people privately agreeing with his general stance: “he was right, but he went about it the wrong way.” Publicly they will stay quiet, keeping up appearances. May I ask those people, what was the right way to approach it? Had he approached it differently, would the outcome have been similar. Probably. But one thing is for sure, we would never have heard about it.
Moreover, they would never have needed to make an example of the Burkes, ensuring other teachers toe the line, compromising their values by changing their teaching habits to suit an ideology they do not believe in. The problem is that there is a heavy personal cost weighing on every one who self-censors, compromising on their core values.
People with strong, unwavering values don’t kowtow like those who are lacking in them. Values form your decision making, give you purpose, show integrity and separate the men from the boys, so to speak.
So, to those who say Enoch Burke didn’t go to prison for his beliefs, but for contempt of court due to his actions: you have a point, but I’ll counter that argument with, his beliefs just so happen to align with biological facts.
To the Connolly supporters in the west of Galway, it only took a young maneen taking a stand on a university campus to show she is not up to the task.
I digress. Universities are more suited to malleable minds, than independent ones, that is why it follows on from school. There is a lot to be said for encouraging your kid to take up a trade or apprenticeship, travel the world, and read Jung on the side. If you want them to be able to keep up with their socialist friends often churned out through universities – perhaps have them brush up on Marxism, and all the other ‘Isms’ in between. However, that is not much use if you wish to study law, like Elijah Burke.
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Laura Lawlor writes from Carlow. You can find her on X at @lawlo16076
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